Jellyfish are gone, and water is clear

Well been awhile since I posted on here. Have only been out a couple times and both times I didn’t have a camera with me. Catherine has had to fill in for a manager who has been away so she hasn’t been able to be out with me in a while. Hopefully this weekend she we will be out.

I went out about a week ago with Jon Paul, Brandon and their two girlfriends. We had a great trip to the gulf. I didn’t even bring my gopro because I thought the vis would be marginal. When we got out there there was 30-35 feet of vis, some of the clearest water I have ever seen out on the gulf side.

The shooting was excellent. We got out limit of red groupers and a bunch of hogs, many 3, 4 and 5 pounds. Brandon shot one that looked around 6 pounds which is great for the Keys. The amount of fish on the coral heads out there made the Atlantic side of the reef look dead in comparison. Big schools of 2-3 pound mangroves were all over. I actually felt like I could shoot a hogfish on almost every single dive if I I wanted to. Some coral heads had ten or more legal hogs on them. We got a couple dog snapper as well. We also saw a 30# black in 25 feet of water which spooked when a nearby jewfish boomed. In the afternoon the vis silted up a bit but all in all it was excellent and well worth the 40 mile drive.

Then yesterday I went out with Andy, Capt Dan and Andrew. We went out front and it was kind of cluster f**k. The water was clear but there was a nice amount of west bound current. The jellyfish were gone thank god. We went out to around 60 feet of water and started diving. We got on some fish and Andy came up with the idea of dropping a chum cage down…which sounded good but in practice we were zipping by the thing so fast that shooting fish off it was pretty tough. Long story short the line of the chum cage broke, a big moray wrapped itself around it and was trying to bite anyone who tried to retrieve it. I have to go back and get the chum cage, as it’s still sitting in 60 feet of water in front of Key West.

That wasn’t the only thing I lost though. We were diving on the rolloff in around 65 feet of water and I shot a big black, who promptly rocked up. Then while trying to untangle my gun, the crimp that attached my float line failed. We dove that spot for an hour and never saw the gun again. I have the spot marked and will have to go back with a scuba tank to look for it.

Other then that it was a fun day. Andrew shot a nice dolphin in 50 feet of water. I shot 3 muttons almost in succession in 60 feet of water. Which has got to be almost my favorite, nothing like sitting on the bottom in 60 feet of blue water calling in a mutton. Of course I left my gopro on while I searched for the missing gun and had no batteries at this point.

Don’t really have any photos from the trips but I will take a couple screen shots from the gopro. Also have some left over coral photos from the beginning of lobster season.